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Physics of Semiconductor Devices: How Many Electrons in One Coulomb?
Physics of Semiconductor Devices: How Many Electrons in One Coulomb?
Devices
The Electron
Free Electrons being liberated
from a heated filament was called
Edison effect. Without knowing it,
Edison stumbled upon the DIODE.
However, he didnt find any use to
it so he just focused on the
refinement of his lamp design.
Electron
E = f*s
Force
= E*s
= f*s
; = (E*q)*s
; = V*q
; = e*V
The
Categories of Solids
z
Electrical Resistivity
and Conductivity of
Selected Materials
at 293 K
Semiconductor Conduction
z
(a) Resistivity versus temperature for a typical conductor. Notice the linear
rise in resistivity with increasing temperature at all but very low temperatures.
(b) Resistivity versus temperature for a typical conductor at very low
temperatures. Notice that the curve flattens and approaches a nonzero
resistance as T 0. (c) Resistivity versus temperature for a typical
semiconductor. The resistivity increases dramatically as T 0.
3) If this filled band overlaps with the next higher band, however (so that
zPartially
zElectrons
Energy band
A half-filled band occurs in materials consisting
of atoms, which contain only one valence
electron per atom. Most highly conducting
metals including copper, gold and silver
satisfy this condition.
Materials consisting of atoms that contain two
valence electrons can still be highly
conducting if the resulting filled band
overlaps with an empty band. This scenario
is shown in b).
Energy band
No conduction is expected for scenario d) where a
completely filled band is separated from the next
higher empty band by a larger energy gap. Such
materials behave as insulators.
Finally, scenario c) depicts the situation in a semiconductor.
The completely filled band is now close enough to
the next higher empty band that electrons can
make it into the next higher band. This yields an
almost full band below an almost empty band. We will
call the almost full band the valence band since it is
occupied by valence electrons.
The almost empty band will be called the conduction
band, as electrons are free to move in this band and
contribute to the conduction of the material.
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Metals as conductors
Nonmetals as conductors
In an insulator, the
electrons are tightly
bonded to atoms and
cannot move.
Since the electrons
cannot move, they
cannot carry current.
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Semiconductors
z The electrons in a
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13
Hole Conduction
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pair elimination
hole
pair creation
electron
Thank You
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